Desire in Long-Term Relationships

The Paradox

At the beginning, desire seems effortless. The newness itself is arousing. You can’t get enough of each other.

Then time passes. The novelty fades. Life accumulates—jobs, children, routines, mortgages. And somewhere along the way, the fire that seemed inexhaustible begins to dim.

This is so common it seems inevitable. But is it?

Research and lived experience suggest that desire doesn’t have to disappear in long relationships. What’s required, though, is different from what was required at the start.

Why Desire Fades

Several factors contribute to desire’s decline:

Habituation: The nervous system stops responding as intensely to familiar stimuli. What once produced a surge of dopamine now produces less.

Over-familiarity: Mystery is erotic. When you know everything about someone—their habits, their bathroom sounds, their morning breath—mystery diminishes.

Security vs. risk: Desire often contains an element of risk, uncertainty, danger. Committed relationship is about safety. The two can feel opposed.

Life demands: Exhaustion from work, children, caregiving leaves little energy for eros.

Resentment: Built-up grievances are poison to desire.

Roles: You become parents, co-managers of a household, practical partners. The erotic self can get lost.

Touch scarcity or pressure: Either you stop touching except for sex (touch becomes rare), or all touch becomes freighted with pressure toward sex (touch becomes stressful).

Security and Eros

Esther Perel has written extensively about the tension between security (what long-term relationships provide) and erotic desire (which often thrives on insecurity, novelty, and risk).

We want to feel safe with our partner—to trust them, to be known and accepted. But desire often needs an element of the unknown, the not-yet-conquered, the surprising.

The couples who maintain desire aren’t those who sacrifice security for excitement. They’re those who find ways to cultivate erotic tension within a secure relationship.

Cultivating Desire

Maintain Separateness

You are not one merged being. You are two separate people who choose each other.

Maintaining your own identity—your own friends, interests, growth—creates space for desire. You remain someone interesting, not just a familiar extension.

“I have my own life” isn’t a threat to the relationship. It’s oxygen for desire.

Create Distance to Cross

Desire requires space to cross. If you’re completely merged, there’s no distance for desire to travel.

Some couples create this by time apart—travel, separate evenings, retreats. The reunion becomes an opportunity for renewed desire.

Cultivate Novelty

Novelty doesn’t require a new partner. It can be:

New experiences together (travel, adventures, learning)
New sexual experiences (exploration, toys, settings, scenarios)
New ways of being together (breaking routines)

The nervous system responds to newness. Give it something new.

Prioritize Sex

When life gets busy, sex often drops to the bottom of the list. And when you stop having sex, desire often fades further. The cycle feeds itself.

Prioritizing sex—actually putting it on the calendar, protecting time for it—can seem unromantic. But waiting for spontaneous desire when you’re exhausted parents or busy professionals may be waiting forever.

Scheduled sex isn’t less real. It’s sex you actually have.

Touch Without Pressure

Non-sexual affection matters. Holding hands, hugs, casual touch, physical closeness that doesn’t lead anywhere.

If all touch becomes foreplay—or if you stop touching because you’re afraid it will become foreplay when you’re not interested—you lose the ease of physical connection.

Touch should be abundant and mostly non-sexual. This creates the context in which sexual touch can arise naturally.

Address the Resentment

Resentment is erosive to desire. If there’s significant built-up anger or hurt, desire often won’t return until that’s addressed.

This may require difficult conversations, repair work, or professional support. But desire can’t thrive in a swamp of unresolved grievance.

Flirt

Remember flirting? The playful attention, the suggestive comments, the I-want-you energy?

Many couples stop flirting once they’re secured. But flirting is fuel. It maintains the erotic charge between you even in ordinary moments.

Flirt with your partner. Send suggestive messages. Look at them with desire, not just comfort.

Keep Some Mystery

You don’t have to share everything. A little privacy, a few closed doors, some experiences that are yours alone—these maintain the sense that your partner is still a separate, surprising person.

Total transparency can erase the mystery that desire needs.

When Desire Is Asymmetrical

Often, one partner wants more sex than the other. This creates pain on both sides—rejection for one, pressure for the other.

Working with desire discrepancy requires:

Honest communication about the experience
Understanding that lower desire isn’t a character flaw
Exploring responsive desire (desire that emerges once things start)
Expanding the definition of sex beyond intercourse
Finding a sustainable rhythm both can live with

This is nuanced work, often helped by a sex therapist.

The Long Game

Desire in long-term relationships isn’t the same as new-relationship passion. It’s a different thing—potentially deeper, more sustainable, more expansive.

New relationship energy is driven by novelty and uncertainty. Long-term desire is cultivated through attention, intention, and the ongoing choice to see your partner as a desirable mystery rather than a familiar certainty.

Go Deeper

These are the original writings this entry draws from: